


I'm safe here

by Captainbeenis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Absent Parents, Comfort, Friendship, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Other, steve being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 12:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainbeenis/pseuds/Captainbeenis
Summary: Steve has always been a little bit alone in his life. There are some breaks between the sadness thankfully.parts of Steve's life as he deals with feelings.





	I'm safe here

**Author's Note:**

> i kinda suck at sumnaries

I never liked being alone. Being in a room with nothing more than the darkness and thoughts as my companion… it was all too familiar. a house with only me inside, and a distant memory of my parents being home for a weekend and actually trying.

They were never home much, never had there been any type of long periods of time were the house had more than one person in it that I could remember. And even then, when they were actually in the house, they were as distant as they could till they were out on another trip, another deal in a city i couldn’t go. The phrase “other things more important than you” was never said, but he could read between the lines. 

Never really understood why. I never did much trouble when i was a child, maybe when I entered middle school, but by then they didn’t care already. Was it because they didn’t know how to connect with me at all? or they just didn’t care to try at this point… 

But i didn’t care anymore either… at least that’s what I like to say to myself. That i don’t care. That it was okay… yeah…

It hurt like hell though. The fact that they didn’t even try a little. That they thought that maybe this wasn’t hurting him like it did. “how much does it cost you to hug me once in a while?” I asked one time in the past to good old paps when he was home and didn’t even notice the bruises I had in my face from a silly fight I had gotten myself into… i hopped into their car and drove to Nancy’s house after he just looked at me for a second and did absolutely nothing.

But those weren’t the worst times, in some kind of way i knew my parents wouldn’t be there… i had made some kind of amend with that. Different story was when the demodogs attacked. It wasn’t about trauma though; i handled that pretty well the first time around. whenever i was scared of anything I just checked myself for a moment, stopped whatever my mind was thinking, maybe go for a drink of something, and sat down with Nancy again… maybe hug her so i knew everything was fine. 

Nancy had always been my pillar of hope in the mess that was my life. She was oh so good for me. She helped me whenever i had problems with school, she kissed me whenever she though i needed it, she calmed my mind with a reassuring looks and smiles when my shit was messed up… even if she didn’t know they were. Even if i didn’t want to say it much, I loved her with all my heart, nothing would ever change that fact. She was the only real thing i had from the “King Steve” era of my life. And I only came to realize that fact after Jonathan, in all his skinny glory beat the living shit out of me and the assholes I called “friends” didn’t do shit… but she was there. It didn’t stop little Johnny from beating my ass, but she was there.

But she wasn’t when the demodogs were there. She wasn’t there when Billy beat my face. She wasn’t there when hopper drove me to the hospital to get me checked or when he left me on my house asking me if I would be fine… I lied that time, the thought of her in Jonathans arm was too much to bear… She wasn’t there when the shadows seemed to move around me. She wasn’t there when I finally catch some sleep and only saw nightmares till I woke up again. She definitely wasn’t there when I wanted to cry and for someone to hold me, just for the house to not respond to me, leaving me there like a baby... god I was a mess.

I was alone that night, completely alone again… after all the time with Nancy… and it was the worst feeling I had ever felt. When the tears stopped coming out and the ragged scream had made my throat sore I got up for some water and maybe a walk around the house. I felt numb… numb picking the glass, numb sitting down, numb turning on the tv, and completely numb when I saw that the sun was coming out and I hadn’t even slept. That day i spent it alone most of the morning till, a clearly still sleepy, Dustin had come and ask me for a ride to get some things, apparently he still wanted some tips on what to buy for his hair and what to do about his lady problems. So I put on my “I’m fine” face and helped the poor little guy out. 

It was nice. Hanging out with him and his friends was an unexpected, but not an unwelcomed change of pace. They were loud and they couldn’t sit straight for even a second, but that was welcomed, I would yell at them to shut up, because I wanted to hear at least something clearly from one of them, but I never wanted silence. Never wanted the same silence that goddamn house had. So I would “babysit” them for a while, and they helped me get me and my goddamn mind out of that stupid house and that feeling of loneliness, even if they didn’t know that. It wasn’t a fix, after all I had to come back home every night to sleep and eat something, but it helped. 

Seeing Nancy with Jonathan also didn’t hurt so much the more time it passed. It still stung a little, but I knew Jonathan was a nice dude, he was far better than me at his shit, and had plans for the future and dreams, a loving mother and brother, good grades… while I had a lonely house, distant parents, failing grades and a sense that I wasted my life trying to be something I hate for years. Thankfully those thoughts didn’t come into my brain too often. But the nights they did came, those were the worst. They always became mess in my head, just flashes of crying into my pillow for some time, thinking of punching something and rolling on the bed.  
they didn’t last much, thankfully, after they happened I could keep doing whatever I was doing semi normally. I wasn’t fine, but I didn’t think I will be.

One of those nights, I was almost on the verge of crying when I heard my door ring. It was Dustin, will, Lucas and mike. “what are you all doing here?” I asked “we have a copy of alien… none of us had seen it and our moms wouldn’t let us see it” was the answer I received. “and I enter the picture were exactly?” I asked putting my hand in my hip. “can we watch it here? We bought popcorns and some drinks” I didn’t think it was a good idea, I had catch a glimpse of that movie one time on the tv and it looked like hell itself, but there was nothing I wanted more than to have company that day so I gave in. acting as if I just wanted food.

The movie was hell, as I had predicted it. it was slow, but once hell got loose everyone there knew they weren’t going to sleep well that night. Mike was hiding behind a pillow trying to look tough, Lucas was right beside him with one pillow of his own, will was extrangely captured by some part of the movies “artist brain I guess” but other made the poor kid grab my sleeve for a while till I put my arm around behind him so he’d feel safe and Dustin didn’t even try to look tough, he got right beside me in the couch and got closer as every scary part came. I of course couldn’t show how scared I was at the movie. Hell, this kids needed one person who wasn’t scared shitless to tell them they were safe if things got heavier, so I put my big boy pants and tried not to look completely and utterly terrified by the movie. Thought I did a nice job.

Once the movie ended I asked if they wanted to stay the night all together watching not scary movies, of course all of them agreed, some even thank me for the idea, and we spent the whole night attacking the weird collection of movies my dad had. That nigh had been incredible, not for the movies or anything, they were pretty mediocre, but actually having people there, even if they were just kids, made me feel safe. 

I woke up from that night with a sore neck and surrounded by toddlers in my sofa. Even if I tried and act mad around the kids, a big smile formed in my face every time they didn’t look. That was one of the first night I felt truly safe since the breakup with Nancy. And it was like that every time the kids were at his home. But even if they made me feel safe for a while I couldn’t talk to them… at least not in a very meaningful way. They were still kids, kids that had faced some fuck up shit, but kids nonetheless. They could talk how to defeat a Demogorgon, but i was pretty sure feelings were a little out of their expertise… hell it was out of my expertise. But the feeling of safeness was appreciated from time to time.

That lead me to this moment… outside of the Starcourt mall with my face still bruised a little, surrounded by paramedics, cops and the military. The gang of kids, the byers and Nancy were in one place of the parking lot and me, robin and Dustin were close enough, but not in the same place. Robin was right beside me, holding me close, acting as some kind of support so I didn’t fall on my face or passed out, wish I was thankful for, and Dustin, after I went to look for him at the hill, looked at us with mild concern and a slight hint of fear. He alternated between that for a while and then he took long looks at his friends.

I could see in his face that he wanted to go and check closely and make sure that everyone was fine, but he wanted to be here if I needed him for something. He always did that, he grabs his hands in this little tick he had that meant he was conflicted with caring about something or someone, never knew when did I pick on it or how “maybe I’m good at noticing subtle things” but it always made things easy for him when interacting with Dustin. “I’m gonna be fine Dust, Robin here got me, go see your friends” he gave me one short smile and run like hell. 

“How did you know he wanted to go?” asked robin still holding me from the side, she looked as, if not more, concerned about me than Dustin. “I have my ways of knowing things… can we sit over there?” I ask pointing at an ambulance that had all the back doors open so anyone could sit on it, robin just nodded and help me go there and sit safely. 

“Aren’t your parents going to be scared for you?” I asked leaning a little onto her, the warm she eradiated was comforting. “they are out of town, probably not going to hear about this till tomorrow… what about you?” she follows almost shyly. “my parents are almost never home. Probably won’t hear about this in a while, don’t know if they will care” I closed my eyes for a little. I can feel her rotate her face to look at me, but I’m almost passing out with my head on her shoulder so I dunno what her face looks like, don’t care too much.  


She puts one arm around my back and pressed me close to her while she rest her head on top of mine. My mind is trying to understand why is she almost hugging me, she never seemed like the huggy person, but I don’t care. I’m tired and I want to rest, hopefully I don’t get nightmares again and manage to get a full night of sleep.

I began to close my eyes a little there, resting on the shoulder of Robin for a few seconds, till I hear something that sounded like a question. “what was that?” “I ask… “were your parents’ home the last time something like this happened?” “nah, they were on a business trip I think or something like that, when they came all my wounds had healed so they didn’t ask if something happened, why?” I opened my eyes a little to look at her face, she looks even more concerned than before, if that is even possible, and tries to mutter something but not a single word manages to escape her lips, that open and close quickly. 

I try to give her a reassuring look but failed miserably, because she turns a little and hugs me tighly. I don’t know how to react to this, my mind is sending many signals that I’m too tired to understand or even care about. “hey hey, it’s okay Rob, they’re never home much, it’s kinda normal… you don’t have to worry too much about me” she doesn’t pull away one bit, she just hugs me even more tightly “well… you didn’t have to accept me dingus, and you did it all the same…” the insult didn’t have the same kind of bite that I’m used to from her… its more… endearing? “yeah… but you’re my friend robin” I say into her hair “there you have it then, same for me”.

My mind took a second to understand what she had said but once I it finally clicked I couldn’t stop myself from returning the hug with all my strength. If the beast that was in the mall didn’t crush her spine probably my hug would do the trick just fine. I didn’t know when was it that the tears came, but they didn’t want to stop. The minutes seemed to pass without me even noticing it as Robin just hug me there, saying things into my ear that I couldn’t understand and rubbing my back.

After a long time, I finally seem to regain my composure, and robin just looked at me for a second, she too with red eyes “guess this emotion fest was a two-way road” no one had notice it tho, so maybe it wasn’t as earth shattering as I had thought. I gave robin a side hug, that thankfully she accepted, putting her head on the space between my head and my shoulders. I looked at the group again, some were teary eyed, others just held each other without moving or emoting anything, they were just comforting themselves. 

All of them with their own problems that I wasn’t too much a part of… that was one of the reasons he tries not throw his own problems into them… they already had too much on their plates. One part of him said “what is one more soul into that?” but the other, the one that was louder and that he seemed to listen the most said “one more than what they need to”.

But now, maybe he had someone he could talk it with about his and her shit. “hey, want to have a sleepover?” she raised her head to look at me for a second, trying to understand what was I saying… so I explained “I really don’t want to be alone in my house tonight” she seemed to understand and put her head again were it was before “yeah, I’d like that”  


The night was used more with talking about our problems to each other… understanding them and then trying to give comfort when we could. finally, at some point we both fell sleep in the sofa close to one another, to say that this was one of the best nights of my life was an understatement. I didn’t have fear of sharing with robin my problems, my insecurities and my fears and she didn’t fear sharing hers after seeing me be so open about mine. We were both safe with each other. And that was a feeling I didn’t wat to let go of for as long as I could live.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this after hearing a really sad song (heard it on loop while writing and right now probably) that manage to put an image of a lonely person sitting alone in a sofa crying in my mind, then the song changed to one more hopeful and the image changed to the same person with some friends. really weird how that mutated into this but here it is.  
> hope you like it.


End file.
